[ExI] Deuteronomy Chapter 13/was Re: Mary Magdelene?

painlord2k at libero.it painlord2k at libero.it
Thu Jun 11 22:14:00 UTC 2009


Il 09/06/2009 1.33, Fred C. Moulton ha scritto:
> On Mon, 2009-06-08 at 21:42 +0200, painlord2k at libero.it wrote:

>> What gave up the masquerade was the burning of the booty.

> It should be pointed out that in other passages there is not a
> complete burning of booty.  So to somehow imply origin of a passage
> can be determined by the disposition of the booty is false.

This could be in the Bible, as the burning happen sometimes and
sometimes not, as the orders are often specific for a particular city or
people.
What I was arguing is that in the Quran Allah never asked Mohammed to
renounce the booty or to a child bride.
This alone set him apart from the Jewish prophet tradition, where God is
a harsh master and set an higher standard for his prophets.


> <snip>
>>> Does everyone agree that the passage calls for genocide against
>>> believers of other religions?
>> Not. This is an order to the leaders for killing the people that
>> ask a Jews to SECRETLY serve other gods or of Jews that SECRETELY
>> serve other gods in the cities of the Land of Israel that was given
>> to the Jews by their God.

> No.  The use of the word "secretly" is several verses previous and
> not in the verses Dan quoted.

It is in the source he linked.
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0513.htm

So are we arguing about different translations?
The text Dan quoted have not a source linked, where the source linked
have a different translation (and Dan tell us so).

I have commented about the source with the Hebrew text.

The initial part, correctly, don't speak about secrecy, but it pretty
strict about who that can/must be killed.

> If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of
> dreams--and he give thee a sign or a wonder,

> and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke unto
> thee--saying: 'Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not
> known, and let us serve them';

One must pretend to be a prophet or to receive omens.
Then it must fail in this "and the sign or the wonder come to pass"
Then it must ask the Jews to go and serve other unknown gods.

People that give sign or wonders are messengers from God and God have an 
alliance with the Jews. But if "the wonder or the sign come to pass", 
this show they were not real messengers from God or that they are 
pretending God is betraying the Alliance. From now, they are in the same 
situation as spies pretending to be ambassadors from an ally. But they 
can not be put to death until they propose a betrayal of the Alliance to 
the Jews.

One could dislike the killings, but the Jews were very serious on matter 
of people claiming to be messengers of God or prophets. No matter if 
they served other gods or claimed to serve Jave.
If the claim to know the future for sure and fail or if they are unable 
to make the wonder they promises, they must be put to death. 
Unfortunately, the standard today is much lower and people make 
predictions they claim to be infallible with too much ease (yes, I'm 
thinking about Al Gore and a few others) and without serious 
consequences (apart becoming richer) when they fail.

In Italy, today, there is a law about "abuse of people credulity" 
(Stefano could translate it better, I suppose).

> Is there an ancient religious text which does not have contradictions
> or errors of logic and knowledge?  Attempting to make one ancient
> religion appear better or worse based on some counting of textual
> problems is just silly.

But some religion admit that the message is brought by imperfect
messengers, so it must be interpreted and checked, where others maintain
that the message is perfect and incorruptible and don't need to be
checked and interpreted.


> Why do I need to point out the obvious? There are persons alive today
> in the Christian tradition who hold that the Bible was not written by
> humans but is literally the "Word of God" and is without error. Of
> course I doubt that anyone on this list falls in that group but that
> is no reason to act as if that group does not exist.

How large this group is?
Because if it is small, we could suppose that this small group is not
representative and what set it apart could be something other.


Mirco
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